The report concluded that there should be fewer NHS organisations to avoid management talent being spread too thin, and that “NHS leadership is in many respects in crisis”.

Sir Robert warned: “If we’re serious about the NHS becoming more efficient and more productive then we need to make these top jobs more manageable, simpler, with greater autonomy to get on, and make the changes that are necessary.”

David Brailer, who was the first US national coordinator for health; John Halamka, the well regarded chief information officer at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center; and the NHS’s very own Sir David Dalton are all on a team which comprises experts from across the globe with a wealth of technical, clinical and managerial expertise.

The team picked by Professor Wachter, who is based at the department of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, is expected to be officially confirmed next week along with the publication of full terms of reference for the review.

Whether the review proves to be a seminal point in the NHS’s digital progression or political froth will, like any review of this type, depend on a a number variables - many of which are far from the author’s control.

But HSJ readers would at the very least be well advised to welcome a fresh perspective from a man whose book, The Digital Doctor, was praised among health policy and informatics experts on both sides of the Atlantic.

US digital health expert Professor Robert Wachter has said finding ways to change the financial and regulatory incentives in the NHS to encourage digital adoption is one of the “fundamental challenges” for his government-backed review.